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Antonio’s phone rings. He glances at the screen and ignores it.
I’m sorry she’s hurt, and I’m sick that my relationship with her might have suffered irreparable damage, but given the circumstances, I would question Marco again. Better to have her furious than dead. You can come back from furious, but you can never come back from dead.
When Antonio’s phone rings for the third time, he throws it across the room so hard it bounces several times before it falls silent.
“Who is it?”
“My wife.”
It doesn’t surprise me that the first phone call Valentina made when she left was to her mother. I’m sure the second was to Lexie. Neither of whom will have an ounce of sympathy for me or Antonio.
“If Marco didn’t open his mouth, who did?” Antonio asks, leaning back in the chair.
I think back at who knew we were hauling Marco in for questioning. Zé, Tamar, Cristiano, and Lucas are the only people, aside from Antonio and me, who knew everything. There’s no way they breathed a word. Zé picked him up, and there were a couple of guards who saw him here, but he wasn’t restrained or in a location that would have sent up any red flags.
When I got the call about Marco, I was in Valentina’s apartment, upstairs. There are no surveillance devices in any of the apartments, and they’re swept regularly, as are our cars and offices.
Lexie was with me. But I stepped out of the room to take the call. My stomach begins to roil. Did she eavesdrop? That’s the only way she could have known a damn thing.
It was her. It has to be.
I’d like to put my fist through a wall to defuse some of the rage building inside. She betrayed me. She fucking betrayed me. The woman is not only a liar, she’s disloyal. Untrustworthy. Not the kind of person I need, or want, in my life.
“I know who told Valentina,” I mutter to Antonio on my way out to find the traitor.
49
ALEXIS
I’m in the kitchen when the apartment door slams so hard it rattles the photographs on the wall—and what little hope for us I have left.
“You betrayed me,” Rafael snarls, rage vibrating off every syllable.
His eyes are weapons shooting daggers that pierce my skin. Regret seeps from the gaping wounds, but I made my choice this morning, and there’s nothing I can do now.
I don’t need to ask why he’s angry, and I won’t feign ignorance. Valentina called me after she spoke with Marco, and then again after she confronted Rafael and Antonio.
She swore she didn’t mention my name once. I believe her. But neither Rafael nor Antonio are fools. I’ll accept responsibility for what I did.
“I’m so sorry. So very sorry, Rafael.” I mean it sincerely. I am sorry. For Valentina. For him. And for me. But as sorry as I am, if I had it to do over, I would tell her again. “I wanted to tell you myself.”
“Sorry?” he taunts. “I don’t believe you’re sorry.”
“Her marriage is in trouble. Marco left, and she was beside herself in a way that I’d never seen her. I didn’t want to tell her. I was worried about what it would mean for your relationship with her.” Vomit tickles my throat. “And what it would mean for our relationship.”
His nostrils flare as he glowers at me, and the sliver of hope I held on to all day evaporates in the charged air.
“Relationship? We have no relationship. Whatever we had is finished.” He leans across the island until his face is inches from mine. “We have nothing.” His voice sends shivers down my spine. “You squandered my trust, and you’ll never get it back.”
He might as well have stuck a knife in my stomach and twisted until I bled out. It would have been less painful.
“It wasn’t an easy decision,” I say softly, “but there was no other choice under the circumstances. She would have done the same for me.”
“No choice?” he roars. “You could have come to me. You could have said that you didn’t know anything.”
You weren’t here to see how distressed she was this morning. You got her anger, which I doubt was anywhere near as heart-wrenching as her tears.
“I couldn’t lie, or put her off. She was distraught. They’re newlyweds. There’s been so much pressure on them since the beginning. She’s the one from the powerful family. The one with the money. Now with the new product that the two of you are launching—it’s been so successful and garnered so much attention. It’s just made things more difficult for them.” The words emerge, but it’s all blather. Yes, they’re true, but he won’t see it the way I do.
